Manchester United did not take Derby County's offense seriously, because Derby County did not attack much and did not pose any threat. Most of their players still defended in the backcourt, so Manchester United could continue to advance steadily and look for opportunities in the halftime.∮

But Manchester United didn't find any good opportunities.

Manchester United's offense continued, but there was no threatening ball once. Manchester United players on the court soon discovered that every time they dribble in the frontcourt, they would be intercepted by at least two players. If it was only 1v1, they were confident that they could at least protect the ball, but it would be difficult for two defensive players. After all, the strength of one player on Derby County is not too bad, and they cannot break through the opponent at will.

As a result, Manchester United conceded goals in the frontcourt in a row, and their attacks were inexplicably ended again and again.

For more than twenty minutes in a row, many people were surprised to find that Manchester United didn't even have a threatening shot. Most of their attacks ended outside the penalty area. The balls passed to the penalty area several times were quickly cleared by Derby County, causing no threat.

This situation is surprising.

It is already surprising that there is no threat to shoot for more than twenty minutes. Think about it, this is a match between Manchester United and Derby County. The latter is a first-tier team. Even though they are the champions of the first-tier league this season, they have not yet left the A-tier league circle. Manchester United is a top-tier team and one of the strongest teams in the world. The strength gap between the two teams is very large. In many people imagine, this game should be a game where Manchester United suppressed Derby County and won without any suspense. But the current situation is that Manchester United has suppressed but there is no threatening ball, and the Derby County goal is as stable as a rock.

The reporters in the media table were all surprised.

They didn't expect the game to be like this. In their impression, if you want to talk about offense, Derby County is really good at attacking, but can you defend? Derby County is not very strong in defense. They have not performed well in defense several times in a season.

This is what they were surprised, because on the court, Derby County is all about defense, and their defense is doing very well - you know, their opponent is Manchester United. How many teams in the world can rely on defense to make Manchester United unable to find a good opportunity for nearly 30 minutes?

Only a handful of them!

It's pretty good to do this!

Fans in the audience of Millennium Stadium also saw the performance of Derby County. For Welsh fans, Manchester United and Derby County are not the teams they support, but Manchester United is more famous and know more stars. So they will cheer for Manchester United at the beginning of the warm-up and the game, but in fact, most people have a sympathy for the weak. On the one hand, they also hope that Derby County can perform well and create miracles to defeat Manchester United.

So when Derby County saw its stable defense, many fans also cheered Derby County.

With these sounds, cheers for Derby County sounded in the stands, which made Derby County players very happy. After all, this is not Pride Stadium. It is far away. In such a large game, there are many neutral fans cheering themselves, and this is the first time many people have encountered it. So they are more fighting spirit and devoted to the defense, and Manchester United's offense feels much more difficult.

At the same time, the commentators also took advantage of the game gap and began to summarize the first thirty minutes.

This summary is on the data. The reason they summarized it is because the previous game data was a bit amazing. "Let's look at it. So far, Manchester United's ball possession rate has reached an astonishing 74%, Derby County is only one-third of theirs, 26%. However, Manchester United only had 4 shots, 0 threatening goals, and 0 goals. The two teams still have no goals so far."

"Looking at Derby County, Derby County is still on defense, but they have six shots, five of which are long shots outside the penalty area, one is a header, and there is no threatening the ball, but their shots are actually more than Manchester United..."

Surprisingly at this point, neither team threatened to shoot, but Derby County had more shots than Manchester United.

This is very strange.

But thinking about Derby County's five long shots on the perimeter, this data seems normal, but Manchester United's ball possession rate reached an astonishing 74%, but only 4 shots in thirty minutes and did not threaten the ball. This means that Manchester United has the advantage, but has not been able to play the advantage. In other words, Manchester United has not yet found a way to break through Derby County's defense.

This also indicates Derby County's defensive success.

The same is true.

The most obvious feeling of Manchester United players on the court is that they attack again and again, but it is difficult to hit the ball into the penalty area for a long time, because once the football reaches the opponent's half, they feel that they will always be pressed, but they are often not one person, at least two. In this case, forcing them to pass more balls is nothing, but the opponent's players seem to have excellent stealing ability. As long as their passing makes a mistake, it often means that the football will be cut off.

Time and time again, Manchester United players are a little unconfident.

They didn't expect this to be the case before the game. They all felt that there was no problem in winning this game. After all, the opponent was just an English League One team. Manchester United had a very good luck in the FA Cup final.

In their opinion, the FA Cup champion has been won early, and all they need to do is to play 90 minutes normally and then celebrate the victory.

But the current situation is different from what I imagined. They have been suppressed but are blocked from the opponent's defense. The repeated attack failures have also made their confidence frustrated again and again. In this case, they are a little confused about how to play. Some players get the ball in the frontcourt and will be careful whether there will be more than two defensive players around them suddenly appear.

With this mentality, the performance of some players has been affected, and the Derby County defense has become more stable.

Manchester United coach Ferguson also frowned.

At this time, the Scots could already see the situation of the game clearly and understand Derby County's tactics in a broad sense.

As an experienced head coach, he can see a lot of things clearly in thirty minutes, such as Derby County methods. They rely on all players to continuously run to increase the intensity of defense. In addition, their defense will hardly be in a gap, because they use regional defense... Regional defense? What an old word. When this word appears in their minds, Ferguson couldn't even believe it because that kind of defense has long been eliminated by modern football, but the defensive tactics used by Derby County on the court must be related to regional defense. They seem to be very chaotic in defense, but in fact, every player will not leave a certain range, and the defense will not cross over. The full-back is the full-back. The midfield is the midfield, and the central defender is the central defender. The overall defensive formation seems to be chaotic, but in fact, the position of each player is very clear. They use the method of expanding the defense area and increasing running to make up for the shortcomings of regional defense.

This tactic is really effective against strong teams and is highly targeted. At least it is difficult for the players on the field to display their personal abilities, so they can only play more passes and cooperate to find opportunities.

Manchester United can also play well in cooperation. But at this time, many players on the court were not very adapted to Derby County's defense, so their performance was not good, which led to the current situation.

Ferguson saw everything clearly, but it was difficult to make changes.

He could only take advantage of the game and find captain Roy Keane, and tell him to inform the whole team, "...... cooperate more!"

With more passes and cooperation, you can naturally create gaps through cooperation. Even if all Derby County players are running, the running will definitely not keep up with the ball. As long as you cooperate well, this situation where it is difficult to find opportunities will naturally be solved.

When Ferguson took action, Wan Sheng had already seen it. He naturally knew what he was most afraid of in this defensive tactic, that is, his opponents should cooperate more. If he met the future Barcelona's "Dream 3" team, a team that was all passing the ball with one kick would be as vulnerable as paper.

Fortunately, Manchester United is Manchester United, not Spanish team, nor 'Barcelona Dream 3' team. Their cooperation is also good, but it actually seems very average. Manchester United's English football characteristics are still very strong - they rely more on the performance of stars rather than the cooperation of the whole team.

Despite this, if Manchester United plays and cooperates, they can easily penetrate the team's defense.

But Wansheng has no choice. Any defensive tactics have loopholes and it is impossible to have perfect tactics. At the same time, the tactics are different for different teams. Derby County has so many strengths, and it is quite good to be able to play like this.

What Wan Sheng hopes to see is that the team can take advantage of Manchester United's not yet adjusted and make some appropriate attacks. If they can score a goal in the first half, even if they become very passive in the second half, there will still be a chance to win.

At this time, the players on the Derby County are also working hard.

Wan Sheng explained everything before the game, and they also knew that the team's tactics were very sudden. If Manchester United understood their tactics and adapted to this kind of defense, the effect of the tactics would naturally become worse, and it would be difficult for them to defend the whole game, so they had to attack.

They know what to do.

Especially now that Manchester United is not performing well on the court, they took the opportunity to advance several times to look for opportunities. As a result, Derby County made several consecutive waves of advancements in the next few minutes.

Although they won't attack too far, they can still do a long shot in front of the penalty area.

Manchester United believes that such a shot will not pose any threat like passing the ball to Manchester United, but as the number of times increases, Manchester United soon stopped thinking so.

In the 35th minute, Lee Morris completed a volley in front of the goal, and the football almost flew out of bounds against the post, which shocked Manchester United in a cold sweat.

Fortunately, the ball didn't make the ball.

Manchester United are all a little lucky.

"Derby County midfielder Lee Morris' long shot! He almost made it! This is also the most threatening shot since the start of the game! Morris is an old Derby County player. He has played for more than four seasons in Derby County and is one of the absolute main players of Derby County. His performance this season is also..."

The on-site commentator began to introduce Lee Morris.

Manchester United had already sent the goal at this time, but Howard's big foot was not very accurate. The football drove to Ribery's feet on the side. Ribery got the ball and rushed forward. When Scholes hit back, he slowed down and then passed the ball to Morris.

Morris had just completed a wonderful shot, and he was a little upset when he failed to score, but he had already adjusted his mindset and glanced at Manchester United's penalty area, intending to find another opportunity. However, Manchester United's defense was very stable at this time, and no teammates were too far ahead. Morris passed it back to Ribery.

Ribery still had to face Scholes' defense when he got the ball again. He did not make any pause because another player, Manchester United's full-back C-Ronaldo, followed, so Ribery passed it to Morris. The two of them fell down like this several times. Seeing that their teammates were unable to cut off the ball, Manchester United centre-back Sylvester couldn't help but force it up.

At this moment, Morris suddenly pushed the ball towards the right side of the empty space!

It was the front of the penalty area, more than 25 meters away from the goal, so it was still very safe to have such a distance. Manchester United players were a little confused, so they saw another player, a young full-back from Derby County followed and raised his right foot without hesitation!

Bang!

Another long shot from outside the penalty area!

Manchester United players are a little used to it. To be honest, it is difficult to stop such shots because they cannot set up dense defenses so far in front of the penalty area. The opponent shoots directly from this position, and there are not many ways to limit them.

But they didn't take it to heart.

Derby County has had many similar shots before, and only once caused a threat. Almost all other shots were like giving the ball back to Manchester United. Such shots are really difficult to create a threat. They also think that the opponent cannot break through Manchester United's defense line, so they can only use this method.

But all these are just thinking about seeing Leiden Bynes's shot instantly.

When many Manchester United players turn their heads to look at their own goal in the direction of the football, their ideas immediately became different, because the football was too fast and the angle was very tricky. In addition... Howard in front of the goal seemed to have reacted a little slower?

Leiden Bynes completed the shot and stood there.

Manchester United players looked back at their goal.

The football rushed straight to the lower right corner of the goal!

Goalkeeper Howard flew to save, but his hands were still a distance away from the football... These all kinds of illustrations formed a complete picture. When time passed the next moment, the football rushed into the Manchester United goal!

Correspondingly, there were even insignificant expressions that were resting on the faces of some Manchester United players, which meant that it was like saying that "the goal doesn't matter." Leiden Bynes, who completed the shot, had already raised his arms in front of him and shouted excitedly.

The ball... seems to be...in?

Many Manchester United players finally reacted at this time... (To be continued, please search for Astronomy, novels are better, updated and faster!
Chapter completed!